"Scum, Rise!"

Hardly Art

Artists:

There's a small publishing house in Detroit called ROTLAND PRESS; they put out comics with a bleak, dark sense of humor. Their offerings are genuinely shocking, depicting murder, gore, rape, and so on. "ROTLAND is a state of mind in which sophisticated cynicism and creative cruelty are necessary," reads their mission statement. With their horrific works, they don't aim for laughs, per se, as much as they're looking to immerse the viewer in complete darkness. Their stuff is so bleak, it's absurd, which seems like an appropriate mindset for a city that's been described as "desolate".

Protomartyr had a few songs set in their hometown on their debut LP, but with "Scum, Rise!", the first taste of Under Color of Official Right (out April 8 via Hardly Art), they focus on Detroit's dark side. The hook supplies darkwave intimidation backed by some occasional screeching noise. After talking about "the Wayne County stank dogs", they tell the story of a sports bar exploding and killing everyone inside. In the middle of the carnage, the band somehow references Red Wing great Steve Yzerman. And they don't stop with the scene's gore—they twist the knife further: "You were only seven years old when your father left you there/ How were you to know he never loved or cared?" Then, singer Joe Casey tells you, several times in his deep voice, that there's nothing you can do. A bunch of people died, your father didn't love you. There is only darkness and nothing can change that. It almost makes you want to laugh.